Mike,
Debra says the same thing.
There’s absolutely no suggestion of weakness about him, it was just an insoluble problem no one saw coming.
I guess we’ve all got our own Kryptonite somewhere, unexpected

There was a young Russian here who wanted to swim the English Channel.
When my colleague told me what he was doing to train for it I asked him if he as mad.
He was swimming 5 miles a day in a swimming pool.
Swimming in chlorine is less buoyant than sea water
but sea water, even in the English Channel is incredibly powerful.
The Channel current can take you 5 miles adrift half a mile off the coast in 20 minutes.
We experienced that in a fishing boat in the Channel when the motor unexpectedly broke down.
I also swam half a mile out in the Atlantic in Portugal once which I would never recommend anyone do.
It’s an incredibly stupid and dangerous thing for us to do.
I told this colleague that if his friend was not careful he could lose his life.
He just laughed.

Even the English channel is not to be meddled with.

Some time went by and I heard nothing.
I asked my colleague what had happened to his Channel swimmer friend.
He told me he managed 9 miles out to sea when his whole body became paralysed with the coldness of the summer water.
He hadn’t put on enough tallow to keep the cold out, but on top of that, he hadn’t trained in the sea and he hadn’t swum far enough in training.
If the support boat had not pulled him out of the Channel when they did he would have drowned.

It gives me ‘colly wobbles’ thinking about it.
Debra was incredibly brave to continue and it’s a fantastic achievement. I don’t doubt that.
I wonder if someone who was older than 26 would do the same?
There’s a very fine line between Courage and Insanity and at some point I believe that line shifts.
It would be interesting to know what impacts the human mind to decide one way or the other.